by Mary Balogh
He wanted her again and found himself wondering what sex in a closed carriage bumping and swaying over English roads would feel like. Cramped and uncomfortable and dangerous and very, very good, he suspected. Perhaps he would put his theory to the test later.
But now everyone was rising from the table. It was time to leave Middlebury Park and one another. It was that most dreary day of the whole year. Except that this year he would not be leaving alone. This year he had a wife to take with him.
And his mother to face in Candlebury, when he got up the courage to go there. And Marianne.
And Velma.
He was glad he had not eaten any of the kidneys. He felt slightly sick to his stomach as it was.
* * *
Everyone was leaving at the same time in a flurry of carriages and horses and grooms and voices and laughter—and tears. Everyone hugged everyone else and held the hug for several long moments. And Agnes was included in it.
They were different from yesterday’s hugs. Yesterday she had been a bride, and people always hugged brides. It was almost an impersonal thing.
Today she was hugged, and today she hugged back because in a way she was one of the group—the Survivors’ Club and their spouses.
She had never been an emotional sort of person, not since her early childhood, anyway. She was not the sort who went about touching others, beyond the occasional social handshake. She rarely hugged anyone, and people rarely hugged her. Normally she shrank from such contact. Just as she had shrunk somewhat from the physical contacts of her first marriage—though only ever inwardly, never outwardly—and had been relieved when they dwindled in frequency and finally came to an end.
Last night she had been consumed by an intense physical passion, and this morning she gave hug for hug to people she scarcely knew, except for Sophia. And she felt a bond, a warmth about the heart, a fondness that defied reason and common sense.
She felt fully alive for perhaps the first time ever. Oh, and deliriously in love, of course, though she would not let her mind dwell upon that, or her heart. She was Flavian’s wife, and for now that would suffice.
She touched her fingers to the back of his hand as they drove away from the house and circled about the formal flower parterres to join the driveway between the topiary gardens and on toward the trees and the gates. And he took hers in his own and held it warmly, though he did not look at her or say anything. She knew that it was impossible for her to understand fully the ties that bound that group of seven. They went deeper than the bonds of family, though, she knew.
But the good-byes had not all been said.
Dora was standing in the garden outside the cottage, watching the carriages go by, smiling and raising her hand as each slowed and farewells were exchanged through opened windows. She was still smiling when Flavian’s carriage stopped and his coachman descended from the box to open the door and set down the steps. Flavian got out and handed Agnes down, and she was enveloped in Dora’s arms, the gate between them. For a few moments neither of them spoke.
“You look beautiful, Agnes,” Dora said when they broke apart. Which was a strange thing to say when her sister was wearing a traveling dress and bonnet she had worn a thousand times before. But she repeated the words with more emphasis. “You look beautiful.”
“And do I look b-beautiful too, Miss Debbins?” Flavian asked in his languid, sighing voice.
Dora looked him over critically.
“Well, yes,” she said. “But you always do. I would not trust you an inch farther than I could throw you, though. And you had better call me Dora, since I am your sister-in-law. Flavian.”
He grinned at her and opened the gate to catch her up in a tight hug.
“I will t-take c-care of her, Dora,” he said. “I p-promise.”
“I will hold you to it,” she said.
And then Agnes hugged her again, and she was being handed back into the carriage, and the door was being shut with a decisive click, and the coachman was throwing her trunk and other bags into the boot, and a few moments later the carriage rocked slightly on its luxurious springs and moved forward. Agnes leaned close to the window and raised a hand. She watched her smiling, straight-backed sister until she could not see her any longer, and even then she kept her hand raised.
“I lived there for scarcely a year,” she said, “yet I feel as if my heart were being ripped out.” Which was perhaps not a very complimentary thing to say to one’s new husband.
“It is your s-sister you are leaving behind, Agnes,” he said, “not a village. And she was once more your m-mother than your sister. You will see plenty of her, though. When we go to Candlebury Abbey to live, we will have her come to s-stay with us—for as long as she l-likes. She can stay with us f-forever if she w-wants, though my guess is that she would p-prefer her independence. But you will see l-lots of her.”
Agnes sat back in her seat, her face averted, but he set an arm about her shoulders and drew her against him until her head had nowhere to go but onto his shoulder. He pulled free the bow beneath her chin and tossed her bonnet onto the seat opposite with his hat.
“Good-byes are the most wretched things in this w-world,” he said. “Never say good-bye to me, Agnes.”
Almost, she thought, almost he was telling her that he really cared. But he quickly ruined that impression.
“I have been w-wondering,” he said on a familiar-sounding sigh, “how possible or impossible and how s-satisfactory or unsatisfactory it would be to have sex in the carriage.”
Was she expected to reply? Apparently not.
“We would not wish to be s-seen, of course,” he said, “though there is something mildly t-titillating about imagining the expressions on the faces of stagecoach passengers as they p-passed by. There are perfectly serviceable curtains to cover the w-windows, however. As to s-swayings and bouncings, my coachman will scarcely notice them if we are on a n-normal stretch of road. We will try it sometime this afternoon. I b-believe the experience will rival for pleasure that of r-rolling around on a bed large enough for ten.”
“Is pleasure all you think about?” she asked him.
“Hmm.” He gave the question some thought. “I sometimes think about hard l-labor too, the kind that has one damp from one’s exertions and panting for air. And I sometimes think of the near pain of holding b-back from going off like a firecracker that will not wait for the main show or like a schoolboy who has never h-heard of self-control. And sometimes I think about the p-propriety of waiting until evening before having marital r-relations with my wife, who might consider it improper to have them in the daytime. Except at half past five o’clock in the morning, that is, when she shows no r-reluctance at all or spares not a single thought to p-propriety.”
Agnes’s shoulders shook. She would not laugh. Oh, she would not. He ought not to be encouraged. But he was holding her shoulder and must know she was either laughing or suffering from the ague. She gave up the struggle to stay silent.
“You are so absurd,” she said, laughing out loud.
“No!” He shrugged his shoulder so that he could look into her face. His eyelids, as she had expected, were half-lowered over his eyes. “I thought I was m-maybe one of the world’s great lovers.”
“Well, I would not know, would I?” she said. “Though I daresay you come pretty close.”
His eyes opened wide suddenly and his face was filled with laughter, and her stomach performed a complete cartwheel inside her.
“You would not dare,” she said. “Do that in here in broad daylight, I mean.”
He leaned back in the seat again and tipped his head sideways to rest his cheek against the top of her head. And she realized that he had prattled on about absurdities in order to take her mind off the parting with Dora, and perhaps to take his mind off the parting with his friends.
“Agnes,” he said a few minutes later, when she was feeling a bit drowsy and thought he might have dozed off, “never issue dares to your husband if you even suspect
for a moment that you may be a poor loser.”
Oh, he was serious. It was scandalous and horrifying and undignified and . . .
She smiled against his shoulder but did not answer.
* * *
Flavian had written to Marianne a week or so ago. In the letter he had informed her when he expected to arrive in London. But he had said nothing about going down to Candlebury for Easter, and he had said nothing about bringing a wife with him. How could he? He had not even known at the time that there was going to be a wife.
He wrote to his mother from the inn where they spent the first night of their journey. It was only fair to warn her. He informed her that he had married by special license, his bride being Mrs. Agnes Keeping, widow of William Keeping and daughter of Mr. Walter Debbins of Lancashire. He made a special note that she was a particular friend of Viscountess Darleigh of Middlebury Park. He was taking her to London for a short while but would bring her to Candlebury for Easter.
His mother would not be pleased, and that was surely a gigantic understatement. But there was nothing she could do about it now that the deed was done, and she would understand that, given a day or two of reflection. And practicality and good manners would of course prevail. By the time she was presented with Agnes, she would be gracious and impeccably good mannered at the very least. How could she not be? Agnes was the new mistress of Candlebury Abbey.
It gave even Flavian a jolt to realize the truth of that fact. Time had moved on. David had been pushed back a little further into history. So had his mother. She was now the Dowager Lady Ponsonby.
The carriage drew to a halt outside Arnott House on Grosvenor Square late in the afternoon of the third day of their journey, only an hour or so later than he had predicted.
He did not move for a few moments after the coachman had opened the door and set down the steps. He would have been quite happy to extend the journey by a few days. He was in no hurry to move on to the next phase of his life after this brief, mindlessly delightful honeymoon.
He had not for a moment regretted his impulsive marriage. The sex was the best of his life, both what had happened each night in decent beds and what had happened three separate times in the carriage—especially what had happened there, in fact. As he had expected, it had been extremely difficult and horribly cramped and uncomfortable and earth-shatteringly satisfying.
Agnes would not admit it. She had remonstrated with him each time, both before and after. But each time she had been unable to hide the passionate pleasure she got from copulating inside a carriage on the king’s highway.
That was one thing about Agnes. She was the very proper lady in public. She could have passed for a prim governess any day of the week. But in private, with him, she could be transformed into hot, uninhibited passion. Steam rose around them when they coupled.
He could not get enough of her and wondered whether he ever would.
But the honeymoon—if a three-day journey could be called that—had to end, and here they were outside his London home, and the door of the house stood open, and there was nothing to do but get out and proceed with the future. At least he had brought her here first. At least he would have her to himself for a few days longer. And there was novelty and appeal in the thought of his familiar home with the unfamiliarity of a wife to share it with.
His butler bowed stiffly, welcomed him home, and glanced warily at Agnes.
“My wife, Viscountess Ponsonby, Biggs,” Flavian said.
Biggs bowed again, even more stiffly and warily, and Agnes inclined her head.
“Mr. Biggs,” she said.
“My lady.”
And then the great cannon boomed, and the shell dropped at Flavian’s feet and exploded in his face. Or so it seemed.
“Her ladyship, your mother, is upstairs in the drawing room, my lord,” Biggs informed him, “awaiting your arrival.” He looked as though he might say more, thought better of it, and shut his mouth with an almost audible clacking of teeth.
His mother? Here? Waiting for him? And if she was here, then so, almost certainly, was Marianne. They had not stayed at Candlebury after all. But was it possible for them to have come in response to his letter? He had written it only two nights ago. Or . . . did they not know?
Almost certainly it was the latter, he realized. Biggs had clearly not known, and servants always knew what their employers knew, and often they knew it first.
Good God! He closed his eyes for a moment, appalled. And for that same moment he considered turning and doing an ignominious bolt, dragging Agnes with him. He turned to her instead and offered his arm. She was looking as pasty of complexion as he felt.
“Come up and m-meet my m-mother,” he said with what he hoped looked like a reassuring smile. “Come and g-get it over with.”
He drew her hand through his arm, and they followed Biggs’s stiff, impassive back up the stairs. This, he thought, was massively unfair to both Agnes and his mother. But what was he to do? He flatly refused to feel like a naughty little boy caught out in some childish mischief. Deuce take it, he was thirty years old. He was the head of his family. He was free to marry whomever he pleased whenever and however he pleased.
He had not expected his mother to be alone in the drawing room. He had steeled himself to find Marianne there too and possibly her husband, Shields, as well. And he was quite right—all three of them were there.
So were Sir Winston and Lady Frome.
And so was their daughter, Velma.
15
The sudden realization that Flavian’s mother was actually in London and in this very house almost completely unnerved Agnes, who was already feeling weary after another day of travel and a little overwhelmed at the discovery that Arnott House was a massive, imposing edifice on one side of a large and stately square. When her foot was on the bottom stair, she almost drew her hand free of his arm and urged him to go up to the drawing room alone, while she went . . . where?
She did not have a room yet, and she did not know where his was. She could not simply turn and flee. Besides . . . well, besides, she was going to have to go through the ordeal of meeting her mother-in-law sooner or later. She had just not expected it to be now. She had hoped for a few days, perhaps even a week, and some exchange of letters first. It seemed highly unlikely that Flavian’s letter had reached his mother before she came to town. Which meant she did not know.
It really did not bear thinking of.
And then they were upstairs, and the butler was opening the high double doors of what Agnes assumed was the drawing room, and she was stepping inside on Flavian’s arm—and realizing in some horror that there were people in the room. Six of them, to be exact.
She slid her hand free and came to a stop just inside the doors, which Mr. Biggs was closing behind her, while Flavian proceeded a few steps farther.
There were four ladies, three of them seated, one standing to one side of the fire that was crackling in the hearth. Of the two gentlemen, the elder stood on the other side of the fireplace, while the younger stood behind the chair of one of the ladies.
All of them looked fashionable and formidable and . . . But there was no time for any further details to impress themselves upon Agnes’s mind. The lady in the chair closest to the door had risen to her feet, her face lighting up with gladness and . . . relief?
“Flavian, my dear,” she said. “At last.”
She set her cheek to his and lightly kissed the air beside his ear. His mother, no doubt. She seemed the right age, and he looked a bit like her.
“We were beginning to think you must have delayed your journey by a day or two, Flavian,” a younger lady said, also getting to her feet and hurrying forward to kiss his cheek, “without a word to anyone, which would have been just like you, but most provoking today of all days.”
There was a family resemblance with this lady too. She must be his sister.
One of the other two ladies, the one standing by the fire, took a few hurried steps toward him before stop
ping, her eyes shining with some barely repressed emotion, her hands clasped to her bosom. She was probably Agnes’s age, perhaps a little older, but she was quite breathtakingly lovely. She was on the small side of medium height, slender and shapely, with a delicately featured, beautiful face, wide blue eyes, and very blond hair.
“Flavian,” she murmured in a soft, sweet voice. “You are home.”
And he spoke for the first time.
“Velma.”
It all happened within moments. Agnes could not go long unnoticed, of course. Unfortunately she was not invisible. And everyone seemed to notice her at the same moment. Flavian’s mother and sister both turned their heads toward her and looked blank. The blond lady—Velma—stopped advancing. The gentleman on the other side of the fireplace raised a quizzing glass to his eye.
And Flavian turned and held out a hand for hers, looking noticeably paler than he had in the carriage a couple of minutes or so ago.
“I have the great pleasure of presenting Agnes, my wife,” he said, gazing unsmiling into her eyes before turning toward back to the others. “My mother, the D-Dowager Viscountess Ponsonby, and my sister, Marianne, Lady Shields.” He indicated the others in turn as he introduced them. “Oswald, Lord Shields, Lady Frome, Sir Winston Frome, and the Countess of Hazeltine, his d-daughter.”
Sir Winston had taken a step closer to his daughter. Lady Frome had got to her feet and also moved closer as if to protect the younger lady. From what? She was the Countess of Hazeltine.
There was a moment—an eternity—of silence.
Lady Shields reacted first.
“Your wife, Flavian?” she said, looking at Agnes with mingled shock and revulsion. “Your wife?”
His mother clutched one hand about the pearls at her throat. “What have you done, Flavian?” she asked faintly, her eyes fixed upon her son’s face. “You have married. And you have done it quite deliberately, have you not? Oh, I might have expected it. You have always been an unnatural son. Always, even before your brother died. And even before you went off to war when it was irresponsible to do so and were wounded and took leave of your senses and turned violent. You ought never to have been let loose from that place we sent you. But this . . . this . . . Oh, this is the outside of enough.”